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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/SolarGlyphs on 2025-11-06 16:54:23+00:00.
I am on an internal tools team for a mid sized company. We do quick fixes and small features for other departments. Historically we tracked time in big chunks, one line per day, because work arrives like popcorn. New manager arrives from a consulting firm. He loves "visibility". He sends a long email with a shiny spreadsheet and announces the new policy. Every task must be logged as a separate line, in 15 minute increments, rounded up. Even if it took 3 minutes. Context switching should be captured for "true cost". No exceptions. He even bolded no exceptions twice.
I asked for clarity. If I answer an access request in 4 minutes, that is 15, right. If I get interrupted mid work to unblock someone for 2 minutes, that is another 15. He writes back, correct, this will show stakeholders the price of interruptions. Great, I thought, we will show them.
Day one with the policy, I kept a little kitchen timer next to the keyboard. Ping, finance needs a report column renamed, 6 minutes. Ticket line, 0.25 hours. Ping, Sales wants a spreadsheet exported, 9 minutes. Ticket line, 0.25 hours. Ping, two separate Slack pings that were technically different tickets, 2 minutes and 5 minutes. Two lines, 0.25 and 0.25. Before lunch I had 14 lines totaling 3.5 hours, despite having worked about 90 minutes. I felt like a petty librarian with a stamp, but also strangely calm. I was doing exactly as asked.
By Friday I had 73 lines. The totals said I worked 58 hours. My badge times said 39. Manager was thrilled. He forwarded my sheet to leadership with a note about "revealed operational load". Then finance noticed that our internal chargeback model pulls from those sheets. Facilities got billed 11.25 hours from me alone for door badge resets that week. Sales got 13.5 hours for CSV pulls. HR got 7.5 for password unlocks. That is only me. We are a team of eight.
Monday 9.12 am I get an invite titled Urgent timekeeping sync. In the room, Finance director, my manager, and two department heads who looked like they had slept under a printer. Director opens with, help me understand how a 90 second CSV costs 15 minutes. I said it is the policy, rounded up, no exceptions. I pulled up the email and the bold line, because I am a helpful coworker. Silence that tasted like a lemon.
Fallout came fast. Finance put an immediate hold on chargebacks from our team. My manager had to write a "temporary suspension of the 15 minute rounding rule" and propose a new plan. The new plan is honestly great. We now reserve 2 hour focus blocks in the calendar where pings are triaged by a rotation. Anything truly urgent goes to the on call person. Everything else becomes a sane queue. Time is logged in half day buckets, with one note of what moved.
My favorite part is a tiny line in the memo, interruptions have a real cost and will be batched where possible. The policy did exactly what he said he wanted, just not the way he hoped. I still keep the kitchen timer on my desk as a paperweight and a reminder to be careful what you standardize.